Entries Tagged as 'Anime'

La Corda d'Oro ~primo passo~

June 22, 2009

La Corda d'Oro ~primo passo~ is one of several anime series I've watched recently via CrunchyRoll.com, who licensed Aniplex's English subtitled version. This twenty-six episode anime series is based on a romance simulation game for women, so as you might expect, it has a central female character surrounded by a plethora of gorgeous males. Fortunately, its way more than just the typical reverse harem situation. The main character, Kahoko Hino, goes to Seisou Academy, a school divided into a General Education segment, which Kahoko attends, and an elite music department that houses some of the creme de la creme of up coming musical talent. The school was founded hundreds of years ago by a music lover. This main once saved the life of a music fairy named Lili, who in turned blessed the school for music and has lived there ever since. For a long time, though, no one has had the ability to see him until Kahoko, a girl who has never played a musical instrument in her life. Thrilled to be seen again, Lili rings a set of magical bells that signal the start of a musical competition in the school and gives Kahoko a magical violin that can be played competently by anyone. Now stuck in the contest, Kahoko does her best to perform to the high standards set by the various gorgeous men around her, while struggling with her own conscience and to hold her own in the competition.

This series features absolutely gorgeous music and animation, making it well worth the watch to me. It also has some interesting story elements that work well. Usually in this kind of story, where some girl is given a magical ability, she's just happy to have it and uses it to the best her ability. However, Kahoko struggles with feelings of guilt that she is able to play beautifully with no real work or talent, and in doing so is besting those who have true talent and have played since childhood. As she grows to know her competitors, her feelings of guilt increase, yet she also cannot just walk away, give up her new found passion, nor let Lili down by dropping out of the contest. And though the violin will allow her to play, that doesn't mean Kahoko is instantly a perfect violinist. She has to struggle to learn to read music, lear more about musical styles and composers, and practices her violin for hours on in. I really like this element of the series, and the final results.

Against this backdrop, we learn more about the pasts of the various male competitors of the contest, each with their own hardships and pains from their love of their instruments. Of course, being a harem style series, some of them do fall in love with Kahoko, though not always in the ways one might expect. I do wish they had also covered Fuyuumi's past a bit, but for the genre its not surprising that the other female characters as basically background noise. The main characters however are generally well done and well-rounded. I love Kahoko's personality. Even at her low points, she is generous natured and an all around good person, despite her rather lack of ability to notice the obvious affection swirling around her.. Hihara's effusive personality is fun, especially as he grows fonder of Kahoko. Tsuchiura and Tsukimori's clashes were well-played, with just the right amount of balance between personal dislike and respect for each other's talents. Azuma is a downright hoot with his double-sided nature! Also interesting to me is that with the introduction of Lili in the first episode, I expected him to be the annoying "mascot" character, but he isn't. He usually appears most episodes, but only briefly and never in a really annoying fashion, which again is a nice touch.

The ending of this series managed to surprise me in multiple ways, some good, some okay. Generally in these series the girl ends up having to make a choice of who she loves the most, and Kahoko's choice was both unexpected and yet not a total surprise when one really rethinks the series as a whole. The events around the final leg of the contest are also different from what one might expect in this type of series, but also fit well with the story as a whole and actually made for more pleasant viewing. The story does have a two-part special, La Corda D'Oro ~secondo passo~, which quickly introduces a new musician who is hiding his abilities after suffering a set back and to fall in love with Kahoko. It isn't a bad add on, but it doesn't really add much to the series either except to repeat how the others felt about Kahoko's music and to show where she is with her "love". There is also a ten volume manga adaptation which has been published by Viz Media. I haven't had a chance to read it yet beyond a one chapter preview, but I plan to see if I can find it in stores locally to check it out.

As a whole, I do recommend the anime. Despite a few flaws, it held my attention enough that I stayed up till 4 in the morning watching most of the series straight through, and as soon as I woke up I watched the rest. I will caution that Aniplex's subtitles are not super top notch and almost every episode has one or two grammar issues, but it isn't so bad that it kills the enjoyment of the series. All 26 episodes, plus the two episode special are free for viewing without requiring membership, so in the end, it costs nothing but time. :-) Of course, if you love it, you still won't be able to buy it on DVD, which is one drawback.

Rating: A-

Kimera OVA

May 12, 2009

Kimera is a 45 minute OVA released in 1996 by and licensed for English release by ADV Films. It is apparently based on a two volume manga series of the same name, also licensed by ADV. It basically features the story of the nerdy looking Omaru, a cereal salesman, who encounters Kimera, a vampire-like creature encased in an ice capsule. Unable to forget the beautiful feminine looking creature, he along with his friend Jay seek her out at an Air Force where Jay's father works, eventually finding and releasing her. Two vampire brothers, the beautiful Kianu and the deformed Ginzu, are also seeking her, with Kianu trying to kill her and Ginzu wanting to capture her. As the episode progresses, we learn about the past of these three vampires and their motivations for their actions.

On the whole, this wasn't a bad little OVA. In some ways, its a fairly stereotypical depiction of vampires, except they come out during the day and there appears to be some different "levels" though this is never really explained. The art in the series is fairly good, with nicely detailed backgrounds and great character designs. In particular, during the opening sequence a hunting dog is shown and I was happy to see that it was fairly realistic depiction of one rather than the usually cartoony style dogs seen in most anime series. That was a nice touch to me. As a note, it does have one partial rape scene, which is well drawn but borders on the hentai line.

If you aren't bothered by that one scene, it is certainly worth watching once, but I probably wouldn't bother buying it. There are too many plot points left unexplored because of its short length to have it really be a top notch story. I'd be curious to read the manga to see if it goes into some concepts more, particularly the past events.

Rating: B-

Full Metal Panic!, Volume 1

February 3, 2009

For my next excursion in anime rental, I rented the first volume of Full Metal Panic! which seems to always top a lot of "favorite" anime lists and it has high ratings amongst Netflix users. The summary is somewhat innocuous, hinting at a possible dramatic series with some comedic elements. The cover is certainly dark and foreboding looking, promising of mecha battles to come. The first episode certainly fits that image, with a gown-clad terrified girl fleeing for her life through a forest with someone trying to capture her then her being saved by a mecha pilot who injects her with something. She doesn't seem all that happy to be rescued either. We have some dramatic political intrigue between a terrorist organization and some freelance vigilante group called Mithril...then, it goes downhill.

We meet a girl named Kaname Chidori, who is some special kind of person called a "Whispered"-a concept left unexplained in this first disc though it seems obvious she is similar to the girl we saw at the beginning. Irregardless, the terrorist group wants her so Mithril sends three of its troops to protect her, with young Sousuke Sagara going undercover in her school. From there, the series goes from a seeming dramatic series to a complete and total comedy of errors. Kaname is a gorgeous girl, with a bad personality (all guys seem to agree, she's perfect till she opens her mouth). Sousuke is supposedly this elite soldier, but he's so hard wired with ridiculous hair-trigger reflexes and literal minded that he jumps at the least little thing, overreacting to basic everyday things, usually resulting in Kaname thinking he's a pervert or a creep and abusing him for it. Seriously, as quick as he reacts, its a shock he hasn't killed half of his own troops. Towards the end of the first disc, things get more dramatic with Kaname captured by the terrorists after they hijack an entire plane to get her (overkill). By this time, of course, Sousuke's gone from seeing her as a job to someone he likes and wants to protect, making him become emotional the one time he shouldn't.

For me, this series was falsely advertised with its original packaging (the later collection package is a bit more matching to the feel of the first episodes), and it just didn't really meet my expectations. It wasn't bad, per se, but the idea of going through 24 episodes of stereotypical comedy situations and the already overplayed "OMG, you pervert" and of watching Sousuke attempt to pretend to be a normal high school student instead of a soldier just didn't have much appeal. Still, I was vaguely curious about the whole Whispered thing and what happened to that first girl, so I rented the second volume. However, while waiting for it arrive, I discovered this series has two sequels of 13 episodes each, both with the same silly focus of Sousuke trying to hide his identity while romancing Kaname. At that point, I wrote the thing off as just not worth the effort.

If you like lots of comedy and don't mind an overplayed, never ending idea of hidden identities and overly stretched out obvious romances, it might be a series for you. For me, disc two was returned unwatched.

Texhnolyze, Volume 1

December 19, 2008

I recently rented the first volume of Texhnolyze from Netflix as part of my "watch the proclaimed anime greats" effort. Over a week later, I'm still trying to figure out just what the heck I saw and why anyone would think this was an "awesome" series. The first volume contains the first four episodes. The first episode seems ridiculously shortly, likely because so little happens in it. Some guy, Ichise according to the label, does some fighting, goes and stands alone in a dark room with a sink awhile, then some woman comes up, they apparently have sex though he doesn't seem particularly interested, and then they have sex in front of someone, or something. Then he gets pissed cause she tries to stab him in the eye and he dumps her off him, so someone cuts off one of his arms and one of his legs as payback? Then some blond woman hears about him struggling to get around (yes, he lived despite a lack of medical care), fucks him literally and figuratively, and...oh, end of volume. Beyond that, about all you learn is there some kind of war between the people who run the city, Orugano, and a rebel group who apparently dislike the Texhnolyze technology (basically melding machine parts into the human body).

This series apparently has an excessive love of long scenes where characters just sit and stare, either at themselves in mirrors, into space, or at each other, and somehow you're supposed to know what important events just transpired. Sorry, but give me dialog, give me a voice over, give me action, but don't expect me to magically guess why some guy whose name I didn't even know was so into looking at himself two minutes into the series! The series producers also apparently like a lot of dark scenes (as in actual dark, dark colors, low light, etc), though in some ways it works for what little bit of story you can get from things.

Most of the characters felt very flat. Only Ichise and the blond doctor/mad scientist, appear to have any motivation, personality, etc. And even then, Ichise is seriously lacking in the personality department. He obviously has a strong will to live and loved his mother who died, and he maybe has conflicting feelings about his father who apparently was hanged by a mob. The doctor likes experimenting and improving her work, has some seriously mental defects, and likes sexually molesting her patients. That's about it. The rest of the characters seemed almost background, even Ran who is supposedly an important character for the series. Psychic girl should be interesting, but instead barely speaks and does that damn staring thing. It doesn't help that most of the character designs are also rather ugly. Ran is cute in a freaky sort of way, but that's about it.

I supposed some folks will say I'm just not "existential" or "intelligent" enough to appreciate such a "deep" series. Maybe its true, who knows. But bottom line is, I doubt most people would enjoy this series, and I didn't find it worth even bothering to attempt to finish watching all 22 episodes. I have better things to do with my times, like clean my house and count the hairs falling off my shedding dog.

Rating: F, its only good points are the soundtrack and some nice visuals

Sailor Moon Essential Episodes

August 12, 2007

Sailor Moon is one of my favorite anime series, being one of the first I ever saw. Back then all I saw was the dubbed version, but I eventually was able to acquire the subbed versions when the Season 1 and 2 uncut sets came out. It only helped me come to love the show even more. The show spans five "seasons", like so:

So all together there are 200 episodes to the show, as well as three movies, Sailor Moon R: The Movie, Sailor Moon S: The Movie, and Sailor Moon SuperS: the Movie and several specials.

While I really love the show, even I must admit that trying to rewatch the series can be something of a daunting task. After all, just watching the 200 main episodes, skipping the movies and specials, would still take over 83 hours! One reason being that the show has a lot of filler episodes, i.e. episodes that don't advance the story or really show any character growth. This is particularly noticeable in the first four seasons.

So I decided to make a "Episodes To See" guide for Sailor Moon, showing which episodes are the must see episodes for important character development and/or story advancement. This guide actually has two sets of episodes. The episodes listed are the ones to see for character development, first uses of new attacks/weapons, and story advancement. Those colored in red italics are skippable if you don't need to see the new attacks/weapons.

Using this guide, you can cut the viewing down to 147 episodes for a slightly more manageable viewing. Or if you skip the red italic ones, you'll have 96 episodes which is certainly more manageable than 200. ;-) I've included notes on the important things that happen during the episodes, while also trying to avoid major spoilers (unless the title of the episode spoils it anyway). As for the specials and movies, they are all skippable for character and story development, however I do highly recommend the R movie as being purely awesome and I think it does clarify quite well what keeps Usagi going and what her power really comes from.

I hope this episode guide is as helpful for others as it has been for me. It was certainly a fun way to revisit one of my favorite series, though it took me several months to get all of the episodes rewatched so I could make the guide. Of all of the seasons, it is hard to say which is my favorite. I enjoy all of them, though I was disappointed by how far from the manga the anime goes, especially in the R, S, and Super S arcs (and possibly Stars from what I've read online, since I've yet to obtain copies of the rare English Stars manga releases).

Eventually I plan to do another Sailor Moon post that will detail the differences between the anime and manga versions of the show, but its still very much a work in progress due to work and school constraints. Keep an eye out for it though! I may also do a similar guide for Cardcaptor Sakura, though I think such a guide will be much harder for me to make. CCS has some "filler" episodes, but they never really feel like fillers to me. :P